FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT SANTIAGO CALATRAVA - PAGE 2

Why do the media get so giddy every time some architect or developer comes around with the latest design for the "tallest skyscraper in America" ("Tallest tower to twist rivals; Trump blasts iffy edifice that would put his in shadow," Page 1, July 26)? This has happened several times in recent years and it always turns out to be a non-story. Getting the funding for such a project is next to impossible. The condo market downtown is currently saturated. If anything this current design being paraded around town is architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava's first draft, his trial balloon.

Bank of America Corp. sued Shelbourne Development Group Inc., which started to build and then halted construction on the planned 150-floor Chicago Spire tower, claiming the company has defaulted on a loan. The Charlotte, N.C.-based lender, in a lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Chicago, said it's seeking $4.9 million in principal, interest and associated fees from Shelbourne and its chairman, Garrett Kelleher, who is said to have guaranteed the obligation. Shelbourne failed to show Bank of America last year that it had obtained an irrevocable construction loan commitment from a lender or lending syndicate, leading the bank to declare a default, according to the complaint.

On Wednesday, NASA spacewalkers wore helmet cams during their shuttle repair project -- simply the latest in a line of other classic uses of cameras strapped to heads (David Letterman used one on a monkey; Fox used one on a catcher). But this technology has so much more potential. The Tempo Subcommittee on Helmet Cams We'd Like To See offers these suggestions. - City Hall hiring cam: View the system as it happens. - John Bolton cam: Watch browbeating of dignitaries, staff, tourists at UN. - I Rafael Palmeiro cam: Watch as he carefully reads ingredient labels at his local GNC. - Caddie cam: Just in case there are any more strippers cavorting with players at that Naperville golf course.

Anyone who has visited Santiago Calatrava's triumph up the road in Milwaukee knows this Spanish architect and engineer has the power to inspire. His addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum, topped with soaring sunshade wings, is breathtaking. That was his first U.S. building. Now it looks like he will produce more brilliance at a site that has cried out for a breathtaking design. Calatrava has designed a commuter train station for the former World Trade Center site that is likely to lift up all of New York.

Under fire for withholding the latest design for a twisting lakefront tower from the public, the project's developer has released to the Tribune his new vision for the proposed 2,000-foot skyscraper, which would be the nation's tallest building. A computer rendering pictures the tower with a tapering, cone-like top rather than the blunt summit that was shown in early December and drew a thumbs-down from critics and the public. While details of the design by Zurich-based architect Santiago Calatrava are sure to change, the developer, Dublin-based Garrett Kelleher, appears to have made a firm choice on its broad outlines.

Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd) voiced concern Wednesday over the redesign of a distinctive tower by renowned architect Santiago Calatrava proposed for a prime lakefront spot in Natarus' downtown ward. "It's an altogether different project" than a version proposed earlier, Natarus said. "It's a huge building. It is 65 feet wider ... My concerns are size, my concerns are traffic. I am concerned about the fact they are going to have over a thousand apartments." The redesign seeks to make the project financially feasible.

Two weeks from disclosing their final plan for the nation's tallest building, the project's developer and architect offered fresh details Monday night, trying to calm fears about traffic and presenting a plan for a nearby park to honor Chicago's founding father. "We have given a lot of importance to the relationship to the city," said the skyscraper's architect, Zurich-based Santiago Calatrava, whose designs include the birdlike addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum. But Calatrava and Dublin-based developer Garrett Kelleher did not win over the leader of the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents, an influential citizens' group.

Plans to build the nation's tallest tower in Chicago, the 2,000-foot-high residential spire designed by star architect Santiago Calatrava, remain on track. The developer, Garrett Kelleher, executive chairman of Dublin-based Shelbourne Development Ltd. and the Shelbourne Group, has been here this week interviewing design and engineering firms to work on the $1.2 billion, 124-story project, his attorney, Thomas J. Murphy, said Friday. "We're pulling the master contract together with the architects and engineers who will work under the Calatrava firm's leadership," Murphy explained.

As the designer of the birdlike addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum and scores of other striking structures worldwide, Santiago Calatrava personifies the phenomenon of the celebrity architect, or "starchitect." But people often forget that Calatrava is both an architect and a structural engineer, which also makes him an apt symbol -- in the body of one person -- of the new integration of architecture and engineering. In that spirit, Calatrava's design for the twisting, 2,000-foot-tall Chicago Spire is rational inside and expressive outside, epitomizing the new aesthetic freedom made possible by the structural undergirding of the latest generation of supertall skyscrapers.

Making his first public appearance, the developer of a proposed 2,000-foot tower for Chicago's lakefront said Monday night that he is so confident the project will succeed that he is ready to order foundations, even though the skyscraper has yet to receive city approval. "This is getting built," said the developer, Garrett Kelleher of Dublin, Ireland, answering skeptics of the twisting condominium tower designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. Taking a swipe at developer Donald Trump, who has called Calatrava's tower "financial suicide," Kelleher said of Trump's 92-story hotel-condominium skyscraper on the former Chicago Sun-Times site: "In my view, the Sun-Times site is neither residential nor office."